Yesterday, Wednesday 20th May marked 500 days since Lindsay and Craig were taken hostage. Members of the adventure motorbike community took part in a ride-out from Kensington to Parliament Square where they joined family, friends, MPs and members of the public in a show of solidarity. 

Tony Vaughan MP, Brendan O’Hara MP and Lady Helena Kennedy, joined Joe, Kieren, Chelsea and Toby, Craig and Lindsay’s children, to deliver the petition to 10 Downing Street calling for urgent action to bring Lindsay and Craig home. And today, Thursday 21 May, an adjournment debate brought by Tony Vaughan MP will take place in Parliament from 5pm.

Worryingly we have learned that they are now both on hunger strike in protest of their continued imprisonment – for Craig it is now day 13 and for Lindsay, day 4. We understand that they feel they have exhausted every other option to be heard. Their phone cards were removed in early May, reportedly after they spoke publicly about their innocence. Lindsay had previously paused a hunger strike after assurances were given that family contact would be restored but resumed when she discovered those assurances had not been honoured. 

It is therefore ever more important that the wait and see approach being taken by the Foreign Office be rapidly transformed into taking real action. There are many things that they could be doing, even though they are no longer present in Iran. For example, they could ask  another embassy to undertake welfare checks, offer Craig and Lindsay diplomatic immunity to afford them greater protection and start proceedings at the international court of justice. We hope that these things will come out in the debate this afternoon and would ask you all to write to your MPs again to push for genuine and rapid action by the FCDO. 

Thank you once again for your support. Thank you to the wonderful bikers who supported the family yesterday – you really made a noise outside parliament and it was so appreciated. 

Please do continue to ask others to sign the petition to show the strength of support for Lindsay and Craig.

Thank you also to those who have donated through the Go Fund Me site. 

From the Family and Friends of Lindsay and Craig